Fresno County, California Biographies
Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)
History By Paul E. Vandor
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186
Transcribed by Peggy Hooper
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
WILLIAM DOHERTY.� An honest, upright and good-natured old Cal-
ifornian, of genial hospitality, is William Doherty, who sowed the first alfalfa
in Kings County. He was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on April 25. 1852,
the son of George Doherty who was also born there and came of a family
originally called O'Doherty. He was married there to Margaret O'Hara,
a native of the region, and they had six children. When William was still
a baby, in the fall of 1852, the parents crossed the ocean to the United States
� and it was then that Mr. O'Doherty dropped the O' from his name � and
settled at Great Barrington, Mass., where he was a fanner; but in 1856 they
moved west to Madison, Wis. There the mother died in 1857, leaving eight
children ; whereupon the father moved to Kansas and settled on Walnut
Creek, sixty miles west of St. Joseph. In 1860 he crossed the great plains
with his family, traveling by ox teams and wagon up the Platte River ; and
on the way he and his party were attacked by Sioux Indians. The train had
forty-six fighting men, and when they were surrounded by Indians, the
wagons were used as corrals, and they fought the savages for thirty-six hours.
At last, �Buffalo Bill" and a company of United States cavalry came to the
rescue, and the Indians fled. The Indians used bows and arrows; William
Doherty and his sister moulded bullets for the riflemen.
Arriving in California without any further mishap, the family settled
in the San Joaquin Valley, where George Doherty farmed Wallace Kerrick's
place. Then the father bought a ranch on Mormon Slough, but in the fall
of 1863 sold out and located in Stanislaus County, near what is now Modesto.
He built a house and was the pioneer farmer in the region between Stanislaus
and Tuolumne Rivers. He had 320 acres which he operated until he died, in
1883, at the age of eighty-four. The mother had died in Wisconsin ; and of the
eight children, five are still living. The oldest girl, Fannie, acted as mother
to the rest of the children until she was married in 1864.
The third youngest in the order of birth, William was for a while in Kan-
sas and then he crossed the plains to California, where he grew up on a farm,
attended school and remained home until his seventeenth year. Then he be-
gan to farm on his own hook on the west side of Stanislaus County, near
what is now Westley and after that he and his brother-in-law, Monroe Gar-
ner, took up land west of Grayson, plowed the raw land with eight-horse
teams, and raised grain. William took up an option on three sections of rail-
road land, improved a part by planting to grain, and succeeded well enough
to clear up all that was necessary to pay for the entire outfit. This included
two six-horse and two eight-horse teams, a header wagon and thresher ; for
the land he paid $1.25 an acre, and had about $8,000 left. The two dry ysears,
1870-71. plunged him $5,000 in debt ; but in 1872 he put 2,000 acres into grain,
cleaned up sufficient to enable him to pay all he owed, and then had $10,000
over.
Selling out, William and his brother Robert removed to Kings County
where they took up homesteads and bought five sections of railroad land.
They went in for grain raising, and met with success; Robert is still on the
place, and William continued there until 1901, when he sold out to his brother
all he owned there except 160 acres ; and then he came to Fresno County.
He bought 1,200 acres on Little Dry Creek, in old Auberry Valley and went
in for stock-raising, farming and the wood business. In 1914 he traded that
property for his present place of eighty acres on McKinley Avenue, in the
Barstow district, ten miles from Fresno. He devotes this to a vineyard of
about thirty-seven acres of Thompson seedless, nine acres Feherzagos, and
a peach orchard of ten acres, and the balance in alfalfa, the whole forming
a fine place. He makes his residence at 327 Coast Avenue, Fresno, where he
has built a comfortable home. He still has 160 acres of alfalfa land at Han-
ford, and eighty acres on Little Dry Creek. He owns, too, 140 acres in the
sinks of Huron, which he rents out. He belongs to the California Associated
Raisin Company and California Peach Growers, Inc.
While at Visalia Mr. Doherty was married to Miss Annie Jessie Evans,
who was born near Madison, Wis., and came to California in 1870 with her
parents ; four children have blessed the union : Edna is Mrs. Garner and
resides in Clovis ; Margaret has become Mrs. Gibbons of Hanford ; Eva is
Mrs. Spears, of Fresno ; and William J. He was educated in the Fresno High
School and Heald's Business College and held a position in the First Na-
tional Bank until he began to assist his father on the ranch. He enlisted in
the United States Army, served with the Ninety-first Division until mustered
out at San Francisco, May, 1919. He is now on the ranch and married to
Ethel Gatewood.
When not giving his time to the social life of the Independent Order
of Foresters, of which he is a member. William Doherty takes part in the
councils of the Democratic party, having been a delagate to both county and
state conventions. He has served on the grand jury, and for two terms was
school trustee in Kings County as well as in Fresno County, where he was
trustee in the Auberry district.
At the time that Mr. Doherty sowed the first alfalfa in Kings County,
he paid fifty cents a pound for the seed. He and his brother and Perry C.
Phillips built the Lake Side ditch, which was the first ditch for irrigating in
Kings County. The Doherty brothers were the first farmers near Hanford.
Mr. Doherty has traveled much through California, and is well-posted
on early days and historical old landmarks. He is also familiar with the
wonders and beauties of California mountains and valleys. He spent four
years in Death Valley, prospecting for nitrate of soda, and found valuable
deposits. In fact, he was so lucky, that he also succeeded in selling the find
to an English syndicate ; but his partners could not be induced to sell out at
the time and they lost out. In the basin, 261 feet below sea-level he found a
vast ledge of rock salt, four miles wide and fifteen miles long; while in the
south-west corner of Death Valley is a range of what appears like a gravel
hill. On close inspection, however, one sees that the gravel forms only a
veneer from six to eight feet thick, and that the balance underneath is solid
rock salt.